Playbill - "At This Theatre”: New World Stages

Playbill.com takes readers on a tour through the history of the Off-Broadway theatre complex New World Stages.

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Reversing the trend of so many of New York’s old playhouses that were converted into cinemas, the space now known as New World Stages began life as an unusual subterranean movie multiplex.

New World Stages and the neighboring Worldwide Plaza skyscraper occupy the former site of Madison Square Garden (on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets), which was torn down in 1968 when the Garden moved south to its current Penn Station location (it started in 1879 in Madison Square). The Eighth Avenue plot was paved over and served as a parking lot for more than two decades.